Soap and process of making soap.



G. ELLIS.

sou AND PROCESS or MAKING sou. APPLICATION FILED NOV. 9, 1907.

Patented Nov. 24, 1908.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 1.

\Rmws vs. \awmm- G. ELLIS.

SOAP AND PROCESS OF MAKING SOAP. APPLICATION FILED NOV. 9, 1907.

Patented N0'v.24, 1908.

2' SHEETS-SHEET 2.

UNITED sTA'rns r rENT onnion.

CARLETON ELLIS, OF LARCHMONT, NEW YORK, ASSIGNOR TO ELLIS-FOSTERCOMPANY, A

CORPORATION OF NEW JERSEY.

soar AND Pnocnss OF MAKING soar.

Specification of Letters Patent Patented Nov. 24,1908.

it i v Application filed November 9, 1907. Serial No. 401,516.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, CAnLE'roN ELLIS, a

citizen of the United States, residing at Larchmont, in the county ofVVestchester and State of New York, have invented certain new and usefulImprovements in Soap and Processes of Making Soap, of which thefollowing is a specification.

This invention relates to the process of making soap powders or soapmaterial, preferably in the powder form, and ',to certain novel productsresulting from said process, and relates particularly to the productionof anhydrous, or substantially anhydrous, soap owders, or saponaceousmatter, all as more lly hereinafter described; particular points ofnovelty being set forth in the appended claims. i

The present methods of manufacturing soap and soap powders involve theprotracted and costly method of saponifying the grease or soap stockwith alkaline solutions, salting out the soap, crutching and setting inframes, and subsequently slicing, drying, reducing to a granularcondition, redrying and grinding to a powder, and mixing with soda ashor other detergent or fill in materials. p I

[y invention involves the manufacture of soap powders and similar soapmaterial, without the use of aqueous solutions for the purpose ofsaponification, and consists essentially in the treatment of the soapstock with the alkali at temperatures sufficiently high to cause thedirect combination of these two elements of the soap. In this mannerproducts areproduced which are entirely free from water and consistsubstantially of the alkali in combination with the. fatty acid of thesoap stock employed, and-more especially in a peculiar amorphouscondition, physically differing from the soap material produced by thesaponification of soap stock with aqueous solutions of the samealkalies.

The soap stock which I preferably employ in preparation of' my improvedcomposition, is oleic acid, or red oil, or similar free fatty acids,such as stearic acid and palmitic acid, as well as such resinous bodiesas colophonium. The particular advantage residing in the use of thesematerialsis that on combination with the alkali, no glycerin is set freeto confer upon the product deleterious hyfollowing manner,'whichrepresents the preferred form of the invention as I now produce it, andwill serve as anillustration of the manner in which useful soap productsmay be made, all as will henceforth be fully apparent to those skilledin the art to which this invention appertains. In a suitable receptacle,such as a kettle, which may be heated by an oil bath or by direct heat,and fitted with suitable stirrmg apparatus, I place a charge of 500pounds of soda ash. This material is heated to about 250 Fhr. andcommercial oleic acid 'run into theket-tle upon the soda ash while thelatter is being stirred, until 300 pounds of the oleic acid have beenadded. I preferably introduce the latter by means of an atomizer orsprayer eic 'so that uniform distribution of the 0 acid through the sodaash is effected. The mixture is then heated for a suitable time,ordinarily for from fifteen to thirty minutes with continuous stirringuntil the oleic acid has combined withits equivalent of soda'ash, andhas in this manner formed a dry anhydrous soapy material. The batch maythen be cooled somewhat and passed through grinding rolls, and ifdesired, screened to produce a powder of suitable uniformity. It is thenready for the market, but if desired, may be mixed with other detergentmaterial such as borax and the like, or fillers such as sodium sulfate;or if the powder is to be used fdr polishing purposes, polishing orabrading material such as tripoli, ground pumice, stone, silex or rottenstone, and the like, may be introduced.

The process above described conducts the operation of manufacture in anintermittent manner, and I preferably, in working on a large scale,manufacture the product. in a novel way, which involves the productionof the anhydrous soap powder in a continuous manner. To this end I feedthe soda ash and reacting soap stock, such as the commercial oleic acidaforesaid, in a continuous manner into an apparatus such as a rotaryinclined heating chamber fitted with scrapers, and pass the materialthrough said inclined chamber, applying suitable heat thereto, anddelivering the material in the form of an anhydrous soap, at the lowerend of the rotary chamber.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 shows partly in elevation andpartly in section, a rotary inclined treating chamber.

-veyer 4, while the fatty acid is introduced through the sprayer 5, inorder to put the fatty acid material in a form suitable for rapidreaction, the acid material is placed in the supply tank 6, and by meansof the pump l2, passes through the heating tube 7, prior to itsdischarge from the spraying element. The scrapers -8 prevent theadhesion to the rotary chamber walls of any material portion of thecomposition. The

- product discharging from the lower end of the rotary chamber iscarried by the conveyer -9 to the grinder -10, and discharges therefromin shape ready for packing in containers. To facilitate the operation ofgrinding, .the conveyer 9 is preferably equipped with the cooling jacket11,

through which cold water circulates.

In Fig. 2, 1 represents an inclined stationary chamber having thefurnace 3 and stack --2; 4- is a conveyer for feeding soda ash or otheralkali into the chamber 1; 5 is a nozzle connected by piping to the tank-6 and used to'distribute-the oil soap stock upon thesoda ash; 7represents a driving pulley on which is strung the scrapers 8.

In Figs?) and 4, 1- represents a flat table in the center of which issituated the driving shaft -2 vertically mounted; 3 is a series ofBunsen burners, heating the table from the lower side; 4 is a feedingdevice for introducing alkali near the center of the table; '5 1s a pipethrough which the soap stock heated if desired, is introduced; 6 is asoap stock supply tank; 7- is a radial arm to which are attached thescrapers --8. The

product so produced is of a friable character, differing from soapmaterials prepared in the wet way from which water has been removed bydrying, and this peculiar friable condition of my product makes theoperation of grinding relatively simple, while conferring peculiardetergent properties upon the material.

Heating of the rotary chamber may be efi'ected, as described, by meansof the furnace, but it should be borne in mind that care must be takento prevent overheating the product as it passes through the chamber; toohigh a heat ives rise to a product having the disagreealfie odor ofburned fat, and I preferably conduct the preparation at a maximumtemperature of 250 Fhr., although for certain fatty material it ispossible to work at a higher temperature without material decomposition.Instead of applying heat to the exterior by means of a furnace, theremay be introducedinto the rotary chamber at the lower end, aforesaid,

ases derived from the passage of air, or inert gases,"through a suitablepreheating device. Where direct heat is used, the furnace should not beplaced too close to the rotary'chamber so that direct contact of theflame may be avoided. The heating operation is under better control ifthe heated products of combustion only come in contact with the rotarychamber. As specified above, a suitable composition is derived byheating in this manner some 300 parts of commercial oleic acid with some500 parts of soda ash, forming sodium oleate. It is possible to make useof. other alkalies such as caustic soda, caustic potash, potassiumcarbonate, or even the bicarbonates of these bases. Twenty parts ofstearic acid combined with 50 parts of soda ash make a suitable soappowder basis. Where a large ex cess of soda ash is desired, theproportion of fatty acid may be reduced, as for instance, 15 parts ofcommercial oleic acid may be combined by my process with 50 parts ofsoda ash. A fairly cheap composition may be made by melting 15 parts ofresin with 15 parts of red oil, and mixing it, while it is in the liquidstate due to heating, with 50 parts of soda ash, in the manner above setforth.

For textile work it is sometlmes desirable to have-a considerableproportion of potash present in the soap powder, and a suitable.composition containing anhydrous potash soap is made by heating in asimilar manner 25 parts of potash, 25 parts of soda ash, 10 parts ofresin, 10 parts of red oil and 10 parts of a fatty soap stock consistinglargely of free fatty acids, with but a small pro ortion of glycerides.The product prepare in accordance with any one of these formulas maybemixed with from 10 to 50% or more of borax or Glaubers salts, orsimilar deter gent. or filling material. For an abrasive or polishingmixture, the addition of from 10 to 20% of silex or ground pumicegenerally suflices. Perfuming agents such as safrol,

oil of mirbane and the like may beadded if desired. The soap powderprepared in this manner may also be worked into the form of cakes bysuitable compression, which operation is facilitated if the soap powderis first rendered slightly moist by sprinklin with water or alcohol, orby the ad ition 0 water or alcohol to the sea powder in a suitablemixer. In the manufacture of the material into solid cakes, it isgenerally advisable to use the maxium amount of soap stock in order thatthe composition may not be too strongly alkaline. In combining andcompressing into cakes in this fashion, one may intermmgle or mcorporatehydrocarbon material, such as naphtha or kerosene, if desired, orammonia as carbonate or sulfate existing rather more in an amorphousform than in the crystalline or semi crystalline condition in which saidordinary wet process soap exists.

To recapitulate: My process consists in the treatment of soap stock, andmore particularly free fatty acids of ordinary fats,

with a suitable amount of an alkali base,

the latter being preferably in excess, and preferably being in the formof the carbonate or'hydroxid, such as the carbonates or hydroxids ofsodium or potassium, and in subjecting the mixture to-a temperaturesufficient to cause the complete, or substantially complete, combinationof the soap stock and the alkali base to form a dry substantiallyanhydrous friable soap material, capable of being rapidly ground to afine product, and further comprises the novel method of manufacture ofsaid material, comprising the treatment of the raw material in acontinuous manner to produce soap by a continuous or non-cumulativemethod. It further comprises as a new article of manufacture the productderived from said process, namely friable substantially anhydrous andnormally amorphous water soluble soap produced by the direct,combination of soap stock, such as. fatty acid material with basesproducing .water soluble soaps, such as the carbonates of sodium orpotassium.

- Having described my invention, to the details ofwhich, I, of course,-do notwish to be limited, what 1 claim is:

1. The process of making anhydrous soap powder of a water solublecharacter, which consists in intimately mingling in a continuous mannera powdered alkali material witha soap forming a fatty acid, in heatingthe mixture to the reacting temperature at which said alkali and acidmaterial combine, in continuously stirring the reacting mass, un-

til combination is substantially complete,

and in cooling and grinding the resulting product.

2. The process of making a substantially anhydrous soap material, whichconsists in intimately mingling in a continuous manner a fixed alkalisuch as soda ash with fatty acid material such as commercial oleic acid,and in agitating and heating the mix ture until substantially thegreater portion of the oleic .acid is convertedinto sodium oleate;whereby a friable-substantially anhydrous soap material is produced.

3. The process of making anhydrous soap powder, WhlCh consists incomblmng soap stock comprising a substantial proportion of free fattyacid-with a fixed alkali without the addition of water, and at atemperature in the neighborhood of 250 Fh-r.; said processbeing-conducted in a continuous and non-cumulative manner.

4. The process of producing soap which comprises the intimate admixturein a continuous manner of powdered fixed alkali, such as soda ash withsoap stock, comprisi? a substantial proportion of ee fatty aci the fixedalkali being present in excess of the soap stock maternal; and insubjecting themixture to dry heat at an elevated temperature wherebycombination between the fixed'alkali and.the soap stock is renderedsubstantially complete. p

5 The processof manufacturing a soap powder, which consistsin sprayingupon a mixture of about 500 parts of soda ash, approximately. 300 partsof commercial oleic acid, in simultaneously stirring and heating themixture to a temperature of about 250 Fhr., and in cooling andgrinding-the re- 'sultant friable product.

In testimony whereof I have afiixed my signature in presence of twowitnesses.

OARLETON ELLIS.

Witnesses:

NATHANIEL ,L. Fosrnn, Hnunm'rm BERKWITZ.

